First off, I am new to the forum and Axiom (possibly) speakers. I have read a lot of the posts and appreciate all of the great feedback.

I have a Yamaha RX-V630 receiver and am looking for 5.1 (minus the sub) speakers. My room is approx. 15'x15' with a ceiling that slants from right to left from 8' to 10.5'

With that receiver should I go with the m50ti's or the m60ti's. Also, should I make the jump to the higher models of the center and surrounds? I am looking to see if my receiver with be powerful enough to push these. I have also heard that Axioms are pretty "bright" with the Yamaha receivers, anyone have experience with this receiver and selection of speakers?

Welcome, Mike. If a recording is "bright", an accurate receiver such as the Yamaha and accurate speakers such as Axioms will reproduce it brightly, as they should. Only inferior speakers cover up some of the problems with bad recordings. Your 630 should have enough power for the M60s in your room, but if you're looking for updated features, not just more power, you could consider the Yamaha 1400.

The second part of my question regards the center and surrounds. Will I be better off going with the QS4's or QS8's and the VP100 or the VP150. Will I notice a difference with my current receiver? Please keep in mind that I will most likely be upgrading the receiver before the speakers...

I'd agree with JohnK; Axioms are efficient enough that you could match that receiver with any 8-ohm axiom speaker.

More important to your choice of speakers would be the size of your room, and whether you know you prefer one of the two axiom sonic styles- 'laid back' (m3, m40?, m50) or 'accurate' (m2, m22, m60, m80). And, of course, avoiding buyer's remorse if you're prone to that.

I'd stay with the QS4 and VP100, since that Yamaha might have a bit of trouble with lower-ohm loads (The newer 1400/2400 are fine with 6-4 ohm loads but I've heard the opposite from Alan about other, older models).

Chances are, it'd be fine. 6-ohms isn't that bad. But you'd have a better fit (in theory, and, if you turn the volume up enough, in practice) with the QS4 and VP100 vs the QS8 and VP150.

Axiom's site has a room wizard to help figure out what speakers would be ideal for your size of room- it's a link off the front page, halfway down. It's one of those popup things so I don't know if I can post the link and it'll work.

austinbirdman
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Sidvicious, could you describe the difference when you upgraded to the amp and started to use the Yamaha as a pre/pro (or point me to an old post on the subject if you have one)? I'm in a similar situation with a 4-yr-old Yamaha receiver (RV-1105, similar to RXV-795) -- wondering whether to get a new 1400/2400 or H/K 430/525, or if it would make more sense to start by getting an external HT amp and using the existing Yamaha as a pre/pro for what, realistically, would be another year or two before I can make the next purchase of that magnitude. I have to get QS8s and a new center first, and pretty soon a new CD or combo player, so there will be limited funds for the receiver/amp setup, when I can get to it. I'm leaning toward a new receiver instead of the separates route, b/c I want to be able to play DPLII or H/K Logic for surround music, as Alan and others have described. If money were no object I'd go the separates route. Open to persuasion either way ....

Mike, is this mainly for home theater or music? About what % each way?

If more HT, I'd suggest a sub, and factoring that into your budget. Your current receiver is fine for that. Re which speakers, M60/VP150/QS8 (QS4 if there's any doubt about driving The QS8's 6 ohm loads). For a sub Axiom is fine but many like the Hsu STF-2.

If more for music it's somewhat more complicated. Surround speakers aren't much use unless you either have multi-channel surround music (SACD, DVD-A, or Digital Dolby or DTS 5.1), or a receiver with Dolby PLII or Logic 7 to reconstruct surround from stereo material. Of course the M60s in the above config are excellent stereo speakers, so would work fine for that, and the surrounds/center would be used for HT. I like multichannel music, but good stereo is really good, and would sound great on M60s.

sorry folks, my bad, I meant the RX-V630 should have no trouble handling the 6ohm load of the VP150! Thanks for the quick correction Peter.

Birdman, I'll try and throw down a few thoughts for you on the addition of the external amp. Unfortunately, anything I say has to be taken with a large grain of salt because I did not perform a blind listening test using both setups.

I decided I'd like to try the seperate route last year. After doing lots of investigating, I realized the cheapest way to get into it was to buy a good quality amp and a AV receiver. I got lucky when the Yamaha RX-Vx40 series came on the market, I was able to pick up the 730 for only a couple-hundred dollars. That was the first purchase in the setup. I had it hooked up to the M60tis for about a month before I added the external Sherbourn amp.

To be completely honest with you, I was unable to hear any differences between the receiver and external hookups at lower volumes. At these ambient-medium volumes there was little or no difference between the amps(at least nothing I could remember - since I did not do a direct A/B). The difference I found was at louder volumes - 80-100db. Sure that's extremely loud, but I do like to listen to movies at a high volume. At these levels, the poor Yammie really started to strain. You can see here that the Yamaha does have a drastic power drop when driving 5 channels. The addition of the Sherbourn really helped out and I think that if you planned on listening at extremely volumes, or have a larger room, seperates are the way to go. You won't see the strain at higher volume levels. That being said, I think the 1400/2400 or the HKs would be more up to the task than my older 730.